Now I love Macs as next as the next drooling fanboy, but the new ads struck me as a little over the top. You know, the ‘PC. Easy as 1 – 2 3′ ads that are over on espn and nytimes. I’ll quote it at the bottom for those of you who have missed it.

So, since I had a shiny new MacBook in front of me, I thought I would write my own.

Mac. Easy as 1 – 2 3

1. Save money.
2. Save money.
3. Blow money and use your credit card since you’ll only have enough money saved right before they come out with a new model anyway.
4. Get computer.
5. Marvel at the shiny box.
6. Sit through annoying welcome video, hope to god your volume is turned down. Guess what, it isn’t.
7. Sit through pathetic ads for MobileMe.
8. Register computer, did you check the ‘Don’t send me email’ option?
9. Take a crazy picture for your account, make sure to use one of the special effects.
10. Remove bloatware from dock that is as long as the screen: Dashboard, Preview, Address Book, iPhoto, iTunes, Mail, Safari, Garageband, Time Machine, System Preferences, iChat, iCal, iMovie, Spaces, Documents, Downloads.
11. Install updates (April 2009) – 368MB.
12. Restart.
13. Frozen update screen, clear update cache, start over.
14. Install updates (April 2009) – 4MB.
15. Install antivirus software.
16. Update antivirus software.
17. Install drivers for peripherals. Not needed! Well, as long as you buy an Apple product, otherwise, good luck, it may still work. Kinda.
18. Remove optional Apple products, GarageBand comes to mind, admit it, you’ve never even opened it.
19. Run Disk Utility, repair permissions.
20. Wait 2 hours for it to finish and tell you something you don’t understand.
21. Read online instruction manual. As if, Macs just work, no instructions needed.
22. Start making crazy movies to post to YouTube about the awesomeness of Macs.
23. Read this post on your shiny Mac, get flustered. Then calm down and admit to yourself all of it is true.

Here is the original ad
PC Easy as 1 – 2 3
1 Remove unneeded bloatware
2 Configure security settings
3 Download and install OS security patches
4 Restart
5 Download and install extra security programs
6 Restart
7 Download / install drivers for peripherals
8 Restart
9 Remove optional Windows components
10 Update new virus list
11 UpdateRun full system virus scan
12. Update new malware list
13. Run full system malware scan
14 Download / install application updates
15 Restart
16 Clean out system registry
17 Repair corrupt system registry
18 Defragment hard drive
19. Free up disk space
20 Scan disk for erros
21 run system file checker
22 Read online instruction manual
23 Cross fingers